Top 3 Tips for Branding your eLearning

eLearning without a brand is like a sports team without a jersey. Your company brand is visible on your website, social media pages and maybe even on your company vehicles and buildings, but what about your company eLearning courses (Pappas, 2016a)?

Chances are, your company has put great effort in branding and building a company image. A brand sets the standard for what we can expect and it ensures the standards of the company are met in the design of the eLearning. Even if you’ve never undertaken eLearning by Apple or McDonalds, I’m sure you can imagine the standard and design of their eLearning based on what you know about the brands already.  

Think about the underlying values, visuals and language that learners will relate to from your company and incorporate these elements into your eLearning. This taps into the subconscious mind and reinforces what your company stands for. It promotes consistency across initiatives and helps you design something that is the right fit for your company. This is a great way to create buy-in and spark familiarisation within your learners (Growth Engineering, 2016).

Off-the-shelf eLearning can provide learners with the information that they need, though research shows that the information can be easily forgotten and the learner sustaining the learnings can be challenging. eLearning needs to focus on behavioural change rather than stating facts and it only makes sense to build your eLearning with your company values and behaviours front of mind, right (Growth Engineering, 2016)?

Check out the top 3 tips on how to incorporate your company flair into your eLearning:

1. Language 

Consider the language that is used throughout the module. Ensure that there are plenty of tie-ins for your company and that the language is eliciting the behaviour you desire from your learners. For example, if you want your employees to be competitive and a significant part of their pay is commission, the language in the module can be of a competitive nature. If one of your core company values is team work and you want your employees to be affiliative and encouraging of each other than language of a competitive nature would not be fit.

2. Logo

Most companies have a brand or logo that sums up what they are all about and this creates a symbol that your learners can identify with (Growth Engineering, 2016). What about creating a logo for your course? Base it off your company’s logo and use the name of the course in it. This approach can be used time and time again and creates a consistent feel and look for your company’s eLearning.

The great thing about incorporating your logo into your company eLearning is that it will create trust from your learners. In this day and age, we are presented with so much stimuli and marketing propaganda that it is easy to judge and distrust online learning solutions (Growth Engineering, 2016). Rather than have your learner drag the module into their rubbish folder, spark familiarisation and create a learning space that is relevant to them.

3. Company Values 

To best encourage employees within your company to take up your ideal behaviours and ‘live’ the company values it is essential to interweave these behaviours and values into your learning solutions (Welker, 2016). Think about the values that are important to your company and reward your learners when their behaviour aligns. If your core company value is innovation, ensure that the correct answers and desired behaviours that you build within the eLearning reflect this. For example, if you asked your learners “You are about to launch the annual performance process for your company, do you A) Follow the procedure manual or B) Brainstorm new ways of running the process with your team. If your core company value was innovation, then you would have the correct answer as ‘B’ as it is reflecting innovation and new ideas. If your company promotes more conventional behaviour, then the answer would be ‘A’.

So like a sports team without a jersey or a company without a logo, eLearning without a brand can lose its purpose. Companies pride themselves on their values and brand so why not incorporate this into your company eLearning? Here at Belvista Studios we are always striving to create the most valuable and engaging eLearning. If you are interested in branding eLearning for your company and creating a template that achieves the tips above, let us partner with you to create something great. Visit our website via visiting http://www.belvistastudios.com to find out more. 

A little bit about the author...

"I am Hannah and I am passionate about how we can create effective and fun learning experiences. I believe that if you create enjoyment and social connection through learning, learning outcomes can sky rocket! The world is changing and becoming more and more digital by the day. We need to harness this and see what's possible!".

                                                           References

Growth engineering. (2016). Growthengineeringcouk. Retrieved 19 November, 2016, from http://www.growthengineering.co.uk/how-your-brand-affects-your-learning-solution/.

Pappas, C.P. (2016a). TalentLMS Blog. Retrieved 19 November, 2016, from https://www.talentlms.com/blog/ways-brand-elearning-course/

Pappas, C.P. (2016b). Litmos. Retrieved 19 November, 2016, from http://www.litmos.com/blog/course-design/7-unexpected-ways-to-integrate-brandin

Welker, S. (2016). Ttcinnovationscom. Retrieved 19 November, 2016, from http://www.ttcinnovations.com/4-ways-to-incorporate-core-values-into-employee-training-free-live-training/